


Cold Hearts Bleed Gold

by jazzetry



Series: The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place [3]
Category: VIXX
Genre: Exploration, Inspired by "Beautiful Liar" by VIXX LR, Isolation, M/M, Nature, Red String of Fate, Self-Discovery, Statue au, Understanding, Wilderness, as in they're connected by a string, based on a bunch of songs, but gold, but only the colors, discovery in general, kind of a Soulmate AU, so kind of whisper too, wow a very common tag i’m sure
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-11
Updated: 2020-07-11
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:27:16
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,008
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25206943
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jazzetry/pseuds/jazzetry
Summary: A thin, aureate fiber connects two idle figures in perfect harmony, sending deluges of life to create consciousness in inanimacy.
Relationships: Jung Taekwoon | Leo/Kim Wonshik | Ravi
Series: The Earth Is Not A Cold Dead Place [3]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1781482
Kudos: 7





	Cold Hearts Bleed Gold

Scarred concrete flooring runs down the expanse of a long forgotten room, decayed furniture lay forgotten between spiderwebs and large bookshelves with sodden books melding into a mass of dirtied paper, spines falling apart at their seams. Glass lies fallen on the ground, hints of sunlight parting in through the slight cracks in the window, dust spiraling in the breeze and falling back onto the dirtied floor. Overgrown branches slot in easily between the light, granting the slightest hint of color in a grey, almost muddied room. Areas of the floor are cracked beneath thin strips of light from slight holes in the dilapidated ceiling and roof, the buds growing out into small, white flowers, angling towards the slight sources of light. 

The windows oversee a seemingly perpetual stretch of fields, dotted in similar white flowers and overgrown grass. Beyond the horizon lie mountains, shrouded in a thin, white mist from the distance. Glare from the overwhelming sun lights up the otherwise dark house.

Beneath the accumulated age, beyond the light of the windows, stand two immobile figures. And, wherever there are cracks in the ceiling, the figures have golden wounds in the place of harsh, dulled out chips in strong marble. Instead of flowers, the elixir of aureate dances in the shifting sunlight, projecting a golden sheen onto the other figure, just barely lighting up slight areas where carved stone curves to form something so humanoid, they look almost alive. 

Between the two statues is a thin fiber of that same gold, interlaced with the tiny, white flowers, and a single dark feather that floated into the window through a light zephyr. In the doldrums of all movement, high and shrill croaks of murders of ravens fall over the nearly silent field, with a few even perching on the ramshackle building marooned to fall under the passage of time. 

The dichotomy of black and white lay intrinsic to the core of the statues, both being coated in the respective color. But both remain blind to the crumbling world around them, their eyelids both carved shut, posed in near mirror to each other, and the golden sheen links the two into a grey middle ground, carved into the grey concrete below. 

Stone hair falls overgrown over parts of one statue’s eyes, slight shades of black differentiating the hair from the skin, carved with such precision that, if not for the slightest hints of erosion where strands of faux hair blends into somewhat smooth pockmarks and the lack of sheen hair actually possesses, looks moveable, nearly fluid in its individual strands, even. The other’s eyes remain uncovered, though its hair sticks up from the forehead, the bends in hair so plentiful, it rests in aerated strands seemingly floating in individual magnetic fields from each other. 

Frozen in time, both figures have their faces angled to the right, the left sides of their jaws jutting towards the ceiling, an accumulation of gold forming around those areas, and branching off into thin tendrils that marble once imperfect stone. 

Rough effigies of hands, covered in the same aureate fractures as the statues, reach out from the darkness, covering black with white, and white with black. Immobile yet expressive, each hand reaches toward the figures, emerging from emptiness to grasp at the human figures. From all corners of the darkness, the hands reach a consortium between one of the two statues, pushing movement in the motionless. 

Hummingbirds chirp by the windows, coming out after a few days’ worth of rain, water mixing with the gold, the luster bubbling over in the inundation, barely muddied by whatever grime the water picks up along the way. The melodies harmonize into discordant chords, piercing the silence in music. 

And, as night falls, something changes. The hands are no longer the way they were before. Curves of digits deepen into fists, elbows appear before the slightest hint of moonlight, the cold nighttime providing a stark contrast between the cold, metallic gold and the colder statues and ground. Starbursts of arms form circles around the figures, cutting off only in the empty space where the figures face each other. Veins shape their way into seemingly strained arms, as if pushed into true action. 

A small flock of birds perch on the roof, and breaks down the section of roof between the two figures, a fissure running through the somewhat sodden canopy falls inward, landing in a thud on a few of the hands, sending a cascade of white powder up into the air and into the rays of the incoming sunlight. The flaps of wings send wind in from above, shading portions of the chalky dust in darkness, allowing the fine mist to contrast with the dark innards of the building. 

As if startled to motion, the resounding thud, albeit onto concrete flooring, knocks the other hands back, fists imperceivably tighter. But still, they motion towards the statues, into the growing number of golden cracks, as if cursed to urge movement from the inanimate. 

Slight rays turn into the open sky, a bright white consuming the darkness in a slight tint of yellow as white fades into the darkness. 

More hummingbirds buzz in through cracks in the window and into the field of flowers, and the arms draw closer to the statues, hands opening up as if to reach out and grab at the figures. Even the shards of pale marble dance to the silent beat of Earth’s rotation and move in synchronization with the hands. 

The slight breeze builds into a harsh gust, causing flurries of petals to shoot up into the greying sky, what was once blue consumed in pale clouds, and descend gracefully down to the grass and building below when a doldrum intercepts the gusts of wind. Overhead, through the decaying wood and gaping break in the wooden boards and corrugated shingles, an albatross makes its way over from open water and into the unknown beyond the mountains and the fields. 

As if spawned by the movement of the outdoors flowing in, the arms appear to spiral around the two figures. White around black and black around white before trading off to create two nearly identical halves of a singular creation. 

The two humanoid statues are unmitigatingly connected, their heads tilted in perfect opposites to each other, arms and legs stiff around carefully constructed torsos, wrapped in billowy fabric, seemingly flowing in the wind along with the arms. 

More hummingbirds outside as the wind grows, flower petals and loose feathers spiraling up into the air in a cyclone, dancing alongside the arms, whose hands are dancing in their own right. 

Wind pelts the surface of the decaying house, riding along the mossy veranda and hugging the sides of the house, chipping away at the weakened walls, taking out chunks of thin wood and whatever pain remains. 

Still, despite the wind forming a cyclone within the house, where loose papers, flower petals, feathers, dust, marble shards, and portions of the broken roof flow from their places, the two figures remain motionless, the alabaster clothing rustling in the wind like paper being torn from a book, batting roughly against sturdy abdomens and strong thighs. The once motionless hair flutters over smooth skin, batting against the golden streams across cracks in the skin, darkness shifting around in fractures at the breadth of alabaster skin. 

Blackening clouds roll into the sky, the dust rising up in whites in the sky, marble fabrics flowing up to consume the room, the hands moving away to the edges to grab a hold of the fabric. 

The sky blackens and the fields, ever so bright in the absence of sun, twist up towards the roof, hummingbirds coming in in droves. 

Then, a torrential downpour as birds move to cover up the roof. 

Then, marble groaning against marble before, barely visible through the mass of birds, two pairs of eyes snap open. 

Black meets white as a golden hue consumes the room in an alien brightness, the cracks on their faces glowing as iris-less and pupil-less eyes meet for the first time, long legs struggling to carry the unfamiliar movement. 

Rain still bats at the building, warring for entrance to hit the scarred concrete, pockmarks already littering the ground where rainfall had landed previously. 

But the outside is foreign. The room is foreign. The hands urging for this animation of two inanimate objects is foreign. Nothing existed before this very instant, and these two statues, looking down at themselves and to each other and around the room, don’t know anything but their sudden existence. 

The hands close in as they inch towards each other on shaky legs, their own hands reaching out to find. Explore the realms beyond their animation and the innate solipsism of their very existence where nothing but themselves feel real. 

The hints of rain hitting their hair, rolling down their smooth, alabaster skin, down their backs, and onto the ground behind them, hitting their legs after the water hits the ground. They can feel, grabbing onto each other, left hand meeting left hand, in smooth, almost choreographed movement. 

They jump at the sensation of being touched by another living thing, and the golden fissures burning impossibly brighter, the remains of any furniture projecting harsh, long shadows onto the dull, slate walls. And they look at each other in wide-eyed fascination, tracing the sources of light down nearly flawless skin and to the strip of aureate emblazoned in the ground in an uneven river of gold. 

Slowly, as the skies fade into a pale grey, and the flock of birds fly away in patternless sprinkles of black in the endless puff of clouds, the muted sunlight barely hitting the surface of the figures’ arms, their harsh shadow a stark contrast between the hazy one of the roof’s. And, in bewilderment, the two look up at the sky, colorless eyes squinting at the light, and risking a step towards the hole. 

Somewhat taller, the white figure stands straight, its hair still standing nearly upright and opens its mouth, the smooth marble moving as if made from actual muscle and bone, stretching like actual skin, and lets out a noise from betwixt those stone lips, as if possessing an actual larynx. 

And the black figure snaps its head towards the figure, eyes wide. 

The voice is low, hoarse with the quality of the voiceless speaking for the first time, barely loud enough to breach the miniscule distance between the two. But it’s real. They’re real. 

They can think, process the world for the first time, and understand just how strange it is to move for the first time, think for the first time, speak for the first time. 

Brilliant warm yellow peeks out from behind them, where the strip of gold followed them to their position beneath the grey sky. The white figure reaches out again, wanting to feel what they’d felt for such a short amount of time. And the black figure, lips parted in awe, allows entrance, feeling the marble rub against marble. 

The hands drifting around behind them still as the light grows brighter, the gold from the cracks at their skin brightening into a melted pool of sunlight beneath their skin, and the black figure returns the favor, cracked hands running down the expanse of the white figure’s arm. 

And they dance this uncoordinated dance, hands running down skin, legs twisting around as they explore each other, feel the unfamiliar, understand each other. Hands tangle in unruly hair, black hands disappearing into white hair, and white disappearing into black while arms tangle between each other, and loose clothing slips down wide shoulders. 

The black figure, moving to stand behind the white, reaches for the cracks at the shoulder blade, dark digits feeling the gold for the first time, running down the molten sunlight while pale fingers reach back to feel the liquid moonlight. 

Suddenly, the hands are driven back into the depths of the still darkened wall, despite the golden glow, and the thin valley of aureate light brightens until the windows leak blinding lights into the open field. With the discrepancy, they jump back again, this time cautiously on sturdy feet. 

And it stays that way, a blinding light consuming the room for one, two, three seconds. 

And longer. 

Both figures are stiff, as if sent back to stillness, but they’re breathing. They’re breathing in air, hands over closed eyes. 

They’re alive. 

Then, in an instant, the light fades to nothing, the golden thread snapping, and despite the gold still swirling around in the faint sunlight shining in from the sky and the windows, the room returns to normal. But, they’re still standing there, stunned. 

For the first time, they take in their surroundings. Not just each other, but the room they’re standing in. They see the spiderwebs running thick down a corner, sticking to dark wooden walls, slight hints of green padded randomly down each piece of wood like a drawing. They look at the thick cracks down the tops and bottoms of each wall, taking in the dark stains of age coloring the off-white ivory in browns. Wooden shelves and a desk and chair line a small portion of the wall, unrecognizably those objects, grey to the point of appearing painted over, lined with their own spider webs and dust. Whatever paper that remains are crinkled, and yellowed, dark charcoal staining the sheets, but whatever words are barely legible and whatever art is figureless. 

They look around at everything, noticing the crookedness of a window frame that seems innate to its structure, or the ceiling that stretches up to the decayed roof and seems unfinished despite the job the weather did to finish it, or the tiny worms slithering out from between the cracks, covered in the accumulation of dirt between the broken concrete. 

Again, the white figure lets out another noise, this time louder, more stable. The black doesn’t respond, but only looks at the white, urging for more, enamored by the sound. And again, the white figure lets out another word, forming words without understanding without voicing out the sounds before it speaks, “Hi.”

The voice that resounds around the silent room echoes, its baritone settling calmly into the air, low enough to feel personal, to feel real. And the black eyes that return the greeting look so confused, but so powerfully understanding that, despite the lack of that burning light connecting the two figures together, they feel connected; they are connected. 

“Where… are we?” the rich, smooth voice echoes out into the room, bouncing from wall to wall until it settles into a low, calm buzz. The white statue looks around, shifting its loosened clothes hanging off its shoulder up to cover its broad shoulders and the golden spiderweb pattern just beneath and around its shoulder blade, a deep rift forming where its collarbones extend out over the skin, and black eyes scan the movement, shrugging with parted lips. 

When white eyes meet black once again, the black figure is shot into action, motioning toward the broken window. More confidently, more mobile, the two look through the slight cracks, seeing the outside for the first time with a clarity the tinted and dirty windows can’t provide. 

“How do we get out?” the white figure asks, captivated by the outside, watching small animals move around on the ground, oblivious to the discoveries the two figures are making, the experiences the two are uncovering for the first time. 

A hare bounding up to the window, watching the two figures with the same awe they possess inspires movement. The black figure gets up, reaching its hand out to the white, silently, and black and white meld together, albeit not mixing. And they make their ways around the furniture, feeling these other man-made objects, not to discover the exit, but to feel. 

Alabaster hands stroke hardened, decayed books, bouncing along the uneven surfaces and pad delicate fingers over foggy wood, prodding at crevices formed from the skies above. And they test different knobs and lift molten objects with curiosity and confusion. 

Then, when black hands meet a dusty, golden knob, and it twists to the side, whatever resistance the door provides parting away to send the door ajar, the figure motions for the white, reaching its long wingspan to meet the other’s vision. 

And, when the dull, dark door parts open, the light is momentarily blinding. Rich magentas and oranges bleed into pale blue skies, refracting off of residual clouds, soaking the landscape in a warm honey. The sun, making its way out from the endless stretch of skies, greets them back from behind the clouds, its wonderful rays shining directly into their eyes. 

Their footsteps leave pits where their weight crushes portions of overgrown grass, flowers flattening into the ground, bleeding greens onto marble feet. 

Tall mountains send long, distinct rays into the hazy distance, falling over sleek hair, reflecting off the glistening lines carved into stone skin. The rays overhead project shadows onto smooth skin, blanched eyelashes batting over pale skin while the black stone shines like skies in the entering night sky. 

And, in their frozen awe, tiny birds land upon broad shoulders and cold heads. Just by their heads, and the two look at each other, observing the slick feathers, bodies dusted in different shades of the Earth, blues focused around beaded eyes and fading into brilliant greens. Quietly, they hear the birds sing a harmonized melody, and rush into movement just for the birds and the song to disappear into the field. Although halting for an iota of time, the two shoot back into motion. 

Loose fabric flows behind the two, drifting up like peacock feathers in an artifice, billowing harshly in the air as they leave the secluded house, running over the slight incline to watch the rest of the world unfold before them. 

Although more grass greets their vision, the mountains grow infinitesimally closer, and the slightest bit of the bend of a river comes into view where they couldn’t see before. And they move to find other life like them, to see if others are like them, but they stop. 

A black hand meets a white elbow, and they stop, staying quiet and still despite the newfound energy bubbling up inside them, threatening to spill out through the still glowing cracks at their skin, and pouring the molten liquid onto the ground, scorching the grass beneath them. An ebony tongue pierces through slightly pale lips, where hesitation poisons the soft muscle back through the lips in retreat. 

“We’re free,” dark shadows form where the white forehead creases, looking at the black figure and back out into the scene, “Why are we stopping?”

Still silent, the slightly shorter figure, hunching its shoulders, points back the way they came and back at the fading sky. And it lets its arms rest at its side, turning back around toward the now distant building. The white figure can no longer see the golden hue painting cold skin in warmth, only frowning. 

Ever so unsure, white lips move blindly before the figure settles on the words to use without necessarily understanding, “Don’t you want to see the world before us? And find and communicate with others just like us?”

Black eyes once again pierces through the golden glow, sharp eyes widening but still unsure, still cold. 

“No one’s looking for us. We can do as we please.”

The eyes narrow, body still facing away from the other. 

“There’s so much more to see than here, and just us two.”

Dark eyes return to neutral, but harden impossibly as much, the gold ever so slightly fading into a doubtful grey, a frown perched on soft lips. 

White eyes widen, mouth open, eyebrows furrowed once again in thought, “Come on, I want to see the world with you…,” and hands of equal pallor reach out over the grass, fading to grey as the sun slowly sets. 

But, when their eyes meet again, and hesitation meets childlike wonder, black cedes defeat first, the walled barrier of crudely made arms crumble onto the ground, sending a plume of dust up into the sky, starkly grey in the dark aqua sky. But, just as quickly as it faded, the glorious light returns in a faint glow just next to their faces and through thin, semi-transparent clothes, shining down the sleeves and the body of the shirt, bathing the multitude of folds in the loose fabric in murky shadows.

A black hand slips into white, and, for the first time, they feel real, emanating warmth into each other, and feeling soft to touch. 

No longer connected by a string, they run hand in hand, still connected through a thin, golden vein that makes them feel human. The faint throbbing of a pulse playing in sync as they run out to the mountain, where they can barely make out the faintest fog of smoke rising up into the clouds, barely noticeable from its place among the remaining cluster of clouds. 

Bare feet and night skies meld with humming bugs and sparkling stars, testing the sensation of sharp rocks against tough, marble skin, and the sparse tree possessing millions of buzzing cicadas and endless energy harshly discordant in sensitive ears. 

They’re not scared, they’re curious, wanting to explore the entire area with more than just a quick glance, but they’re also set. They see something so unfamiliar in this already foreign world that they must discover its source. And, when they run over another hummock, their destination still seems so far, but they can see it. The rising smoke, in thick, constant streams of ebony ash dancing up along the wind and into the night sky. 

But, even as they pass over dozens of hummocks, approaching the distance with such vivacity, the hazy cloud of smoke rising up in the twinkling stars never seems to move despite their bouncing vision. And, despite remaining dormant for however long it took for them to achieve consciousness, they have to halt, white and black trading places when the white hand grabs a hold of loose, almost translucent black fabric. 

“Wait,” and the body crumples to the ground, exhausted, white knees staining brown and green. The white chest heaves out and in, struggling to catch breath, “Let’s sit a while.”

Atop the hummock, miles away from all other structure, beneath the fluttering leaves of a wisteria tree, they sit there, white head on black shoulder, black head on white head. And, although so far away from their destination, of exploration and discovery, they settle in a halocline between their origin and the smoke, breathless but allowing the rapture of this world sweep them away. 

And, as the morning rolls into the night, breaking dawn where the sun rises over the horizon, the faintest shadow of a long left behind building cuts the brilliant rays like the mountain, a burning silhouette barely visible before the ring of fire. 

But instead of jubilant, awestruck thuds of footsteps on the morning dew, soaking up the new day, all movement ceases. A few birds rest upon the strong shoulder, and the unification of black and white white tiny insects crawl along the breadth of their skin and the rigid fabric. Instead of a faint golden glow only heightened by the slightest morning fog projecting around them like lifehouses cutting through the misty sea, the gold has faded, drying into a dull grey connecting the two of them together nonetheless.

They’re shaded from the harsh rains, droplets of water rolling onto marble skin, glowing gold for a split second when they hit stone and rolling down clear. But, ever so slightly, their paths deviate over the chest, minute movements of the chest altering the flow, the cracks in the skin glowing when droplets hit. Sitting there, the two figures are still breathing, still feeling, still alive, but motionless even in the wake of nature’s ceaseless movement. 

The water hits the ground, and a tiny, golden flower sprouts into the air.

**Author's Note:**

> i based this off beautiful liar along with the standard and deluxe album covers and the covers for the singles of 'Broken Machine' by nothing but thieves where (i'm pretty sure) ravi represented white and leo represented black.
> 
> i don't know much about sculpting, so i imagine leo and ravi are like those fancy greek god sculptures carved all in one color, and in the colors they represent. i'd imagine they're wearing a loose button-down shirt with very few buttons actually buttoned so they can push it off the shoulders to show to cracks on their backs (wow, using that english skill wisely). and i guess their pants are just really loose too. (or maybe some loose, monochromatic traditional clothes like in shangri-la, idk)
> 
> i wanted to make them wear clothes despite the fact the album covers this was based on have two (probably) topless women and that those fancy greek sculptures are mostly naked as well because i think it'd be a little weird if two naked statues with golden cracks just ran down a field to find other people, though the entire idea of this is rather ridiculous, so i don’t know.
> 
> the repetitive mention of birds is that hummingbirds represent movement (among other things) or something like that, and albatrosses represent luck (because they brought wind to sailors by sending a breeze for them), at least according to this one website i googled.
> 
> i wanted to make this about connection and understanding, which is why leo seems to understand everything ravi says despite never having heard anyone speak and the latter not even knowing what he’s saying while ravi just somehow knows what leo means in every action. 
> 
> as they say, a joke isn’t funny when you have to explain it, and i’m pretty sure it also applies to (bad) stories too, but if high school english classes make kids do that, then i can too. plus, that’s how i passed the ap test, so there we go.
> 
> tl;dr: so, imagine pygmalion and galatea, but they’re both galatea and they’re in love, but clothed (but not wearing socks so it’s fine)


End file.
